EPIC 2014

If you have the patience to appreciate a slowly-developing 5-minute online movie, you'll enjoy Robin Sloan's EPIC 2014, a prognostication set in 2014 that looks back to the events (from 1989-2014) that lead to the demise of traditional media.

Sloan depicts a mildly dystopian portrait of technology and democracy challenging editorial wisdom. This future shows a society where myriad points-of-view paint the world in shades of yellow journalism.

In EPIC 2014, blogs and social networks (and their affluent, paranoid technological patrons) harm our society by sacrificing the professional attitude toward media and media ethics so carefully cultivated during the 20th century.

Today, to read the Drudge Report is to know the power of an editor whose personal foibles outweigh his journalistic principles, and therefore to understand how the seeds of Sloan's EPIC 2014 have already been sown.

My Firstborn Shall be Named Happenstance O'Balderdash Le Folderol

Not to be outdone by Gwyneth Paltrow and her baby Apple, Julia Roberts has decided to name her newborn twins Phinneaus and Hazel.

Additional Context for the Mosque Shooting

All you news junkies have seen the video or read the story of the US Marine killing a gravely wounded insurgent in a Fallujah mosque.

To get a better understanding of the complex situation surrounding this tragic act, read the blog of the journalist who was embedded with that unit and shot the footage.

Greek Lawyers: Alexander's Relationship With Hephaistion Was Strictly Platonic

Any blushing freshman studying humanities at an American college will tell you that casual homosexuality was socially acceptable among male citizens of Ancient Greece. However, a group of peeved Greek lawyers want you to know that Oliver Stone's portrayal of a bi-sexual Alexander the Great amounts to little more than salacious allegations.

I'm glad this issue is hitting the press right now. After homosexuality was simplified and demonized by Radical Christian Clerics in the run-up to the US presidential election, shining some light on the complex relationships among males in Early Greece will force some people to see same sex relationships in a new light.

P.S.
Liberals/Progressives/Democrats/Religious Lefties,

Please refrain from using the phrases Christian Fundamentalists or The Religious Right to refer to Pat Robertson and his ilk. Both are hidden compliments. Please use Radical Christian Clerics.

That is all,
Andy

I'll Be Attending a Speech on Speeches

I was one of the founding crew at my company. But, since I have no discernable technical skills, the title on my business card reads, ahem... Director of Marketing.

Since this title gives people the false impression that I know Thing One about the highly specialized and decidedly frightening area of marketing, occasionally companies send me silly promotions directed toward Directors of Marketing.

Case in point, this is a tradeshow on tradeshows. Yikes.

Adoration in Any Language

My friend Mark has started writing an online column for Google's Orkut service.

How does this sudden online fame change his world? Well, now Mark gets to contend with broken English fanmail.

I love the stark poetic quality of these notes. Mariane tells Mark:

Ola!
I call Mary
I am Brazilian
but I am liveing
in japao.

Procuro friendship
and also much understanding
therefore I am new in orkut
and wait its here

scrap
Mary
kisses

Who can argue with that?

President George H. W. Bush: Fashion Maven

How daring.

Khaki after Labor Day. In Little Rock, of all places...

Source: Yahoo!

New Education Secretary Fighting Style!

You are strong, Lo Fei, but have you seen my Twin Goose With a Kleenex style?!?! (Sensei Bush looks on, pleased with his pupil. "You are learning, grasshopper," he thinks.)


Source: CNN.com

This is an auspicious beginning, but Margaret Spellings will need to diligently train if she wants to match the 1000 Fighting Styles of Donald Rumsfeld.

Wild Thing, You Make Our Sales Sing

I'd be bummed if Pfizer had to pull its Wild Thing Viagra ads. This ad was the first to broach that hot topic among the Viagra/Cialis/Levitra/Swedish Miracle Pump set: Trophy Wives. In the Wild Thing ad, the woman walking around with the Viagra'd man is easily 15 years his junior.

Had the FDA not stepped in, I'm sure that an ad for recreational Viagra use would have been forthcoming.

If We Did It This Way, I Guess Bush Would Be Mr. America

A strange factoid:

The British Royal family don't really have surnames.

Well, they do have a surname (Mountbatten-Windsor), but the usage of their surname is strange enough that Prince Henry, who recently joined the British Army, will come to be referred to as Mr. Wales, Officer Cadet Wales, or simply Wales.

Henry Charles Albert David Mountbatten-Windsor's formal title is His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales.